Necromancer Of The Black Bible (138)

Three days later.

Natasha kept her promise.

She had deployed undead soldiers to every village that had requested manpower for the harvest.

“They’re coming to help with our work?”

“Not to kill us?”

The residents of Schubas village looked at the old man with worried faces.

Village head Harman.

He remembered the conversation with Natasha from yesterday and spoke.

“If they intended to kill us, they would have done so already.”

At that, everyone could only nod.

After all, every elite soldier stationed at Brandstein City had become undead, and there was no one left to protect them.

“Then wouldn’t it be better to just run away?”

“Yes. I think so too. It’s better than sitting and waiting to be killed.”

“Run away? To where?”

Harman the village head asked everyone.

But no one answered. The head looked around at them and continued.

“If running away would have solved anything, I wouldn’t have gone to the castle yesterday. Where could we possibly go from the edge of the Empire? Even if we left, is there anywhere that would take us in?”

At that moment, someone muttered quietly from one side.

“You never know. Maybe the bandits would take us in.”

“Bandits?!”

Harman raised his voice.

“Do you truly wish to become bandits?!”

The complaining youth fell silent.

The head spoke again in a stern voice.

“Living as bandits is by no means easy. It’s even harder within the Empire. Do you think banditry is simple? Most caravans hire capable mercenaries for transport, so you can’t just rob a caravan, and travelers usually learn enough martial skills to protect themselves. The only thing left is pillaging small frontier villages, and even that can only be done a few times. Punitive parties will storm in at any moment, and if a captured comrade reveals information, you’re likely to be ambushed and killed at night. Do you really want to become such bandits?”

The atmosphere grew solemn.

Understandably so, because everyone knew Harman’s past.

About thirty years ago he had been a member of a notorious bandit group in the Dead Lands.

He had barely escaped from there and settled here.

For that reason, the villagers respected his opinion highly.

Harman looked ahead again and said,

“This is the largest granary region even within the county. Being able to live in a place like this is a blessing. Has anyone among you ever gone hungry?”

Everyone fell silent.

Because the village head’s point was correct.

This place produced far more grain than other villages.

Thanks to that, even in years of poor harvest there was usually enough grain to see the villagers through the year.

Thus they had not experienced famine across generations.

The head continued calmly.

“This is our home that we must protect. Remember that if you leave this place, a life worse than death awaits.”

“Understood.”

The discussion ended there.

The question of whether the undead soldiers dispatched here would kill them or work for them was immediately resolved.

The troops who arrived at the rice fields began working without even glancing at the villagers gathered at the village entrance.

In fact, Natasha was watching this scene through the undead linked to her.

‘Their reaction isn’t as extreme as I thought.’

She recalled the terror enemy soldiers felt when facing undead troops for the first time.

But such a reaction was not felt from the villagers.

Rather, it felt like they were watching calmly.

‘That old man’s leadership seems quite something.’

Certainly, a leader’s qualities seemed to determine the character of the group.

My father, who once ruled the Principality of Tarnia, was like that too.

Because of his stern yet flexible nature, his subordinates strove to emulate that trait.

‘And these ones I command will resemble me as well.’

To be honest, “resemble” is an inaccurate term.

The undead soldiers linked to her did exactly as she commanded.

‘Now, let’s work.’

Natasha issued orders one by one to the undead soldiers connected to her.

-It’s simple work. Pull the rice, bind it, and stack it over there.

Though mindless, the undead could perform repetitive tasks very easily.

They did it much better than they fought with swords or spears.

Because the targets to be pulled were planted in the ground and did not move.

All the villagers watched the undead soldiers harvest.

Pull, bind, toss.

As the harvested rice began to pile up in one place, exclamations of admiration were heard.

“W-well, this is something else?”

“To work that fast and precisely…”

“They don’t even drop a single grain on the ground.”

They were right.

Their movements were so clean that there was no chance for grains to fall from the stalks.

Amazingly efficient and precise movements.

What was more surprising was that they did not rest.

Thanks to that, the harvested crops began to be neatly piled in one place.

Once a fair amount had accumulated, the villagers who had been watching started moving it into the storage.

Seeing this, Natasha gave orders to the remaining groups.

-You there, move the piled grain to the storage. It’s a simple task. Pick it up, carry it, then set it down.

Natasha’s meticulous instructions made the undead soldiers move with care.

They picked up the grain with both hands as instructed and brought it to the storage.

With them even helping with storage, the villagers in practice had nothing left to do.

But the village head would not leave them be.

“What are you doing? We are the masters of this place. Can the masters just sit idle?”

At the stern reproach, the able-bodied men wedged themselves among the undead soldiers and took their share of the work.

With humans and undead working together like this, the work progressed smoothly and swiftly.

The power of the undead soldiers shone even more at night.

Though the villagers had grown tired and stepped back, the supervising head sat on a rock and continued to watch.

The undead soldiers did not rest.

They worked endlessly until nearly midnight.

The rice fields were wide and the amount to harvest large, but with a thousand or so undead soldiers working without pause, the standing grain dwindled rapidly.

Around the time it passed midnight.

One undead soldier approached the village head.

When the soldier looked into the head’s eyes, a voice spoke inside the head’s mind.

-Go inside and rest now.

Startled, the head sprang up and glanced around.

“Wh-who are you?!”

-Don’t be afraid. It’s me. We met once at the castle.

The voice came again.

Listening carefully, it sounded familiar.

“M-My Lady?”

-That’s right.

The village head blinked with wide eyes, and the undead soldier patted his shoulder.

-I will keep my promise. It should all be finished in about a week.

“Ah, yes.”

The head nodded reflexively, and the undead soldier turned him around.

-Don’t worry and go inside to rest.

“No, but still…”

-If you stay out here freezing to death overnight, it will only cause trouble for everyone.

Natasha was right.

If something happened to him, the villagers would suspect the lord, and that suspicion would be grounds for mutual distrust.

That would mean the annihilation of the villagers.

The head nodded and returned to his house.

The undead soldiers continued working after that.

The harvest in Schubas village finished exactly one week later.

Just as Natasha had said it would.

A month had passed since Laerin had stayed at Brandstein Castle.

She had returned at the instruction of her mother, Cirrhnua Matter.

-Join Natasha and Verdin. They are our family now.

‘Family.’

For Laerin, who had lived alone for many years, the word “family” felt strange.

In fact, she was not originally from Silvandel.

An elf from a border village of Pristine Forest in the southwest.

For some reason, Laerin had drifted from there to Silvandel.

Recalling a past she did not wish to remember, Laerin shook her head and sorted the papers before her.

They were documents compiling the villagers’ requests at Natasha’s instruction.

The ten villagers who had come to the audience chamber a month ago were representatives of villages both inside and outside the castle.

At first they had written just one request and left.

Natasha responded immediately to that request, and the next day five thousand troops dispersed to ten villages to begin harvesting.

The undead troops’ performance was remarkable.

They finished in a single day what regular laborers would take a week to do, which was an enormous help to the villagers.

Moreover, they did not coerce the villagers to work.

The undead soldiers worked diligently regardless of whether the villagers helped, and as a result they completed a harvest that would have taken two months of continuous labor.

Afterwards, the villagers sent a document filled with requests.

Scanning them, Laerin clicked her tongue softly.

‘There are many things they never once asked the Viscount Grovebern for.’

Was it shamelessness?

Or should she just let it pass?

Laerin recalled the past.

Back when those who had settled alone on Silvandel Mountain began to form villages after fleeing.

People built an altar before a nearby waterfall and offered prayers.

The prayers were simple.

They asked for healing for the sick.

At first she simply watched, but the number of the ill gradually increased.

Not only the elderly but parents and children grew gravely ill.

When they placed a dying child before the altar and began praying, Laerin appeared and healed them.

That was the reason Laerin began to be among humans.

‘They asked for a lot afterward, but not this much.’

There were indeed many requests written in the documents.

Mobilize soldiers needed for the winter season.

They need hands for threshing as well.

Small bandits have gathered east of the village. Please suppress them.

A child went missing a few days ago. Please find them.

And so on.

These were requests Viscount Grovebern would never have granted.

In truth, lords do not concern themselves with such matters; they’re bothersome, unprofitable, and cost money.

But the villagers were freely laying out their troubles to Natasha, who had only recently begun ruling the castle.

‘How can this be?’

Laerin could not understand it.

Natasha, who commanded thousands of undead soldiers.

She herself was undead too.

She looked like a peculiar lady wearing black glasses, but she exuded the characteristic scent of the undead.

Moreover, the ability to command thousands of undead soldiers at will was…

“Ugh…”

Just thinking about it gave her goosebumps.

Laerin rubbed the goosebumps on her forearms.

At that moment, the door burst open and someone entered.

The headless phantom knight Verdin.

He approached Laerin and spoke.

“It’s time to keep our promise.”

“Ah…”

Laerin recalled the promise she had made with him.

The promise to find the missing Princess Lillian.